Organized Labour Insists On A Realistic Minimum Wage, Rejects Government's Offer Of N100,000.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) have firmly rejected the Federal Government's proposed minimum wage of N100,000. According to these unions, this figure is insufficient, especially when their calculated minimum of N615,000 is based on the lowest acceptable living standards.

Negotiations hit a snag last Wednesday when the government suggested a new minimum wage of N48,000, leading Organized Labour to walk out of the meeting. Alhaji Bukar Goni, chair of the Tripartite Committee on the National Minimum Wage, has since called for a follow-up meeting on May 20, signaling the government's readiness to negotiate further and urging the unions to also reconsider their stance.

Despite this, NLC delegate Prof. Theophilus Ndubuaku has made it clear that a minimum wage offer of N100,000 would still not meet the needs of workers, emphasizing the unions' determination to secure a more substantial wage increase.

According to him: “I don’t think one hundred thousand naira is a kind of thing we want because it’s far below expectation; we will accept something that can at least keep somebody alive. I don’t think a hundred thousand naira will keep a worker alive in this country, a man with a family of six because our computation is based on the size of a family.

So, if they come up with that kind of amount, I don’t think we will appreciate it. In the private sector, even artisans are not taking one hundred thousand a month. Whatever we accept we will look what is the income, and what are they collecting. what is available to the government because if the government is collecting one trillion naira, we cannot ask them to pay two trillion.

We are responsible people but the same government should know that people are suffering, they will have to agree with us that there is a crisis, that something needs to be done to create wealth, that something needs to be done for Nigeria to be a producing country and not a consuming nation

Something needs to be done to reduce the cost of governance. We are supposed to be partners in governance, after all, we are the labourers. If we see that a hundred thousand is affordable, if we see that they can afford more, we will reject it. They have to tell us why they cannot pay N615,000, the onus is on them to tell us why, and then we will sit down and say okay you don’t have the money but we will also know why you don’t have the money because Nigeria is a country that is naturally endowed but something is wrong.

Benson Upah, Head of Information and Public Affairs of NLC, added: “Our expectations are that government should be serious this time around. We expect them to take more seriously the issue of wages of workers.”

Regarding labor's acceptance of N100,000, he stated:  “Well, it will not be fair and these are the reasons. The first reason is that when we demanded N615,000, we broke that down. In fact, we used the barest minimum.

For instance, we put accommodation at N40,000, we also use for feeding N500, tell me where you are going to get food for N500 with a family of six. As I said, we used barest estimates but beyond that, government hiked electricity tariff by two hundred and fifty per cent after we made our demand and that has introduced costs and expenses.

So if the government is serious, it should not be thinking about one hundred thousand naira. You know that when you create poor citizens, you create a poorer country.”